As a viewed myself in a fragment of looking-glass..., I was so impressed with a sense of vague awe at my appearance ... that I was seized with a violent tremour.

[E]very plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its dénouement before anything be attempted with the pen. It is only with the dénouement constantly in view that we can plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points tend to the development of the intention.

It is a happiness to wonder; -- it is a happiness to dream.

I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never without a pocket-handkerchief.

I dread the events of the future, not in themselves but in their results.

Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal that diddles but man.

Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.